Pharyngula

Posted by: nigelTheBold | November 27, 2009 11:16 AM

I don't know about the top photo, but the bottom one looks like something you shoot in Ratchet & Clank.

Why is it that other creatures get all the great toys? What do we get? Wings? No! Puffy heads or torsos? No! (At least, not on-demand puffiness.) Cool go-fast glow-in-the-dark racing stripes? Hell, no! Underwater jetpacks? The ability to expel ink to affect a perfect getaway? Eight appendages that can be used as arms or legs? No, no, and no.

My parents survived evolution, and all I got was this great big brain, which is on the inside, where nobody can see it.

The octopus got a better deal.

Posted by: daveau | November 27, 2009 11:22 AM

I'm pretty sure that's not what they mean by "Black Friday", but I'm always up for vampire squid.

For those of us at work: yay, Friday!

Posted by: daveau | November 27, 2009 11:28 AM

I'll second scotth on the Planet Earth series.

Posted by: Bruno Santos | November 27, 2009 11:29 AM

Such a nice name, huh?

Posted by: nigelTheBold | November 27, 2009 11:37 AM

I'll third the whole Planet Earth as justification for upgrading to HD. I picked up an HD TV a couple of years ago, along with a PS3 (because Ratchet & Clank was coming out, of course). The first thing I bought was Planet Earth. Just the opening scenes were stunning.

It's a beautiful, wonderful series. Highly recommended. But definitely get the BluRay version. DVD just doesn't do it justice.

Posted by: keir | November 27, 2009 11:56 AM

I'm celebrating Buy Nothing Day today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buy_Nothing_Day

Posted by: Stardrake | November 27, 2009 12:14 PM

None more black, innit?

Posted by: masksoferis.wordpress.com | November 27, 2009 12:35 PM

And for some reason my first reaction was "What? Squid on a Blue Screen of Death?"

Time to get outside for a bit, I guess.

Posted by: TheBlackCat | November 27, 2009 12:54 PM

There is also a cave full of these things in the Wii scuba "simulator" (I use the term lightly) game Endless Ocean. They light up and cover themselves with their "cape" if you poke them. The cave is located in a deep volcanic trench in the game, which is also inhabited by a number of other deep-sea creatures including a giant squid (at certain points in the day) and some small transparent squid I don't remember the name of. The cave is called "vampire's cave" or something like that. There are actually a respectable number of cephalopods in the game.

Posted by: krc [clowersnet.net] | November 27, 2009 3:37 PM

nigelTheBold: And the blu-ray version has Attenborough

Posted by: daveau | November 27, 2009 4:10 PM

Tully@20-

What's sad is that I recognized the species name.

My first thought: "We've done that one, haven't we?"

Posted by: AD | November 27, 2009 5:29 PM

Wonderful photos. I didn't know this model came in black.

Posted by: Copernicus | November 27, 2009 5:58 PM

@AD #23

I didn't know this model came in black.

I understand that it's color ranges from pale red to jet-black but I suspect that as red light does not penetrate into the aphotic zone where Vampyroteuthis lives at around 900m, the "jet-black" is probably more of a "dark red" rendering it practically invisible to potential predators.

As you can see in the video above, if stressed the animal can draw its web over its head and mantle in the "pineapple" posture, the web interior being black also.

If you're interested in a litle more information on the bioluminescense, this research will be useful:

Robison, B.R., Reisenbichler, K.R., Hunt, J.C., and Haddock, S.H.D. Light production by the arm tips of the deep-sea cephalopod Vampyroteuthis infernalis. Biological Bulletin 205: 102-109. (October 2003)

Posted by: Yelena | November 28, 2009 10:51 AM

Awwww, look at those pretty blue eyes!!...

Posted by: Copernicus | November 28, 2009 1:04 PM

@Eawyne #28:

Again something creationists will wave to make their point? Living fossil, amazing features for a creature like that

"Living fossil"? One might argue that it is a "phylogenetic relict", but I don't think it's relatedness to squid and octopus sufficiently identifies it as that, given taxonomy is so strongly correlated with discovery- we know so little about ocean life, especially in the deep oceans, that it would be premature to label the Vampire as such because we have only described one species in the Order Vampyromorphida in the least-explored habitat on Earth- not finding evidence yet of adaptive radiation is not definitive...

Perhaps there is a stronger argument for the Gingko, or Aardvark, Hoatzin or Horseshoe crab, but who said evolution has to follow an observable and rigid sequence of events?

In The Third Culture, Stephen JaY Gould explains:

"There is no progress in evolution. The fact of evolutionary change through time doesn’t represent progress as we know it. Progress is not inevitable. Much of evolution is downward in terms of morphological complexity, rather than upward. We’re not marching toward some greater thing. The actual history of life is awfully damn curious in the light of our usual expectation that there’s some predictable drive toward a generally increasing complexity in time. If that’s so, life certainly took its time about it: five-sixths of the history of life is the story of single-celled creatures only."

Posted by: Samantha Vimes | November 28, 2009 9:18 PM

I think everyone who's the least bit interested in ocean creatures will recognize the Latin name of the "vampire squid from hell" on sight. Because it's such a memorable name.